Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

The incentive for me is receiving news early; format is secondary.

The key question is whether the focus is on appealing to existing members, or trying to attract new ones.


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I would say a balance of the two, having past issues available without membership may entice new members who wish to see the current Newsletter quicker and as part of the membership package alongside the Magazine.

With EAs situation where there is no recurring membership subscription and all shareholder are eternal until perhaps they return or sell those shares then the incentive is more towards gaining further shareholders and keeping shareholders up to date in the cheapest format possible. Therefore email is perhaps the best way to go.

In the L&B case, where there is a repeating yearly renewal of memberships, plus the need for incentives for new memberships (besides life members), then the Newsletter in hard copy and the magazines, with past Newsletter issues published for further incentive is probably optimal.

 

If the Magazines are intended - at least in part - to be an incentive, then IMHO the first step should be to increase the frequency to quarterly. Most of the other societies/trusts etc to which I belong manage 4 issues per year (and until recently one did 6). On a pro-rate cost basis, a L&BR Trust member actually pays more per issue than any of my other memberships. But I realise of course that will require yet more volunteer input from the Editorial team, and also there is probably a limit to how much historical info about the L&BR can be 'recycled' in order to fill space in Magazine issues.

 

We may need to agree to disagree on that.


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You raise some good points here.
Another method of communication which might be worth looking at;
Since Paul Churchman became the acting chair of the Bluebell plc in February, he has instigated Chairman's Weekly Updates online. This gives everyone a 7- day snapshot of the railway - special events preparations, day to day running, measures necessary to maintain/ improve the financial health of the railway, meetings held, and subjects discussed. Whilst hard detail may of necessity be low, the overall impression given is one of transparency, not to mention positivity.
https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/download/updates/
I commend this initiative to the house, although I do appreciate the time and discipline involved with such a personal undertaking, but something like a monthly update would be almost as effective for a smaller enterprise like the L&B, and to a very long way towards dissolving the current Secret Squirrel image of the Trust.
Download the latest one, and you'll notice a very tongue-in-cheek reference to "keyboard warriors", too.
I wonder what could possibly have inspired that?

 

I think as you say a monthly update could work. All depends on time constraints etc.

 

What is "the incentive", Dave ? I doubt too many people join up just to get a newsletter : they'll join up to support the project and expect, not unreasonably, to be kept informed of progress. As for the magazine : it is a well designed and produced booklet but of limited use and the cost of editing, printing and distributing is considerable, money which could better be used elsewhere.
Most organisations I belong to moved to sending newsletters and magazines by email a decade or more ago, the savings in time, postage and stationery is enormous. Provision can always be made for those few who want to continue to receive papers by post.

 

Agreed, and I think that is a good example of what to me is the critical point that communications is much more about culture than the specific documents published or the format in which that is done. The willingness to tell the story engenders trust at a macro level that then renders moot more micro-level concerns. take away that willingness and inevitably people focus on the minutiae, or absence thereof.

The other point I'd draw from it is that clearly he wishes them to be widely read: he posts them himself to a couple of more or less open Facebook groups and eventually they go on the public website. A less open approach might be to say "these are for volunteers only, or even staff only". In a business organisation, then it is maybe easier to draw a neat distinction between "internal" and "external" communications, but I am increasingly of the view that in a member-led, volunteer-driven organisation such as most heritage railways, that distinction is largely untenable.

Tom

 

No point in discussing further without the relevant market research tbh, but I can see an incentive from a commercial point of view, and it's also used in crowd funding quite extensively.

Hmm, just taking a quick look at a selection of other organisations...
Rnli, National Trust, Essex Wildlife, English Heritage, Bluebell, V&A Museum, Ffestiniog Railway, all appear to have a hard copy magazine in their membership package.
It could be argued that perhaps the Newsletter could be incorporated into the magazine, but being as the Newsletter is not a glossy mag but on normal A4 it can possibly be edited easier and closer to the distribution date to include more recent info than perhaps the magazine.

In my view if we followed other organisations we wouldn't see a newsletter at all because it's in the magazines which are included in the membership package. There is often an option for the public to buy a magazine if they wish without membership.

I'm not actually sure but I believe we already may do that from the Woody Bay shop?

 

...and who remembers "The Lynton Line", the last issue of which was April 2021 ? Admittedly it was aimed at 'local residents', but IMHO it could be easily adapted for a more general audience.

More importantly perhaps, maybe it's a good time to resurrect it now and start 'informing' local residents about Option 'C' and the proposed extension to CFL etc ?

 

Although there's a potential trap there too - and as you say provision needs to be made.

It's not just me being difficult either - a quick straw poll in the office of people aged from their twenties through to early 40s (me) is that physical is really valued. It might just be the industry we're in, but when you spend upwards of 10 hours a day staring at a screen for work related business the last thing any of us want to do in downtime is stare at a screen... Send us a magazine, on the other hand, and it gets read.

There's something of a print renaissance going on with the younger generations, even as the retired (I'm being pejorative here) become increasingly digital.

On a personal note, I have resigned from two organisations that went online only, as I have no interest in yet more emails and screen time.

As an aside, direct mail firms are having something of a purple patch, because the under 50s get so little post that they actually open junk mail - open rates have gone through the roof....

 

I think this may go for a lot of people now screens and computers are quite common in work places.

I know I jumped on the Kindle bandwagon some years ago and within a year or so I had switched it off and went back to old fashioned books especially reference books.

I think also it a way to switch off from everything, if you are reading something on a phone or even a tablet, if its connected to the Internet then there is distractions, msgs, notifications and all the crap of the modern electronic world.

I know I sometimes do it, phone gets chucked on charge somewhere, grab a book, or a magazine and relax with a cuppa.

 

Just to be pedantic. . . Google is rarely a source, it is a search engine that may lead you to any number of sources (that themselves may or may not have first hand info about whatever you searched for). I certainly agree with your second sentence.

 

I am pleased to announce that I have today received by email, Newsletter 13S from L&B Blackmoor Company plc (LBBC), the first since the acquisition.

Unfortunately, it is marked "Confidential" so I can't say any more about it, but at least I have been updated.

 

..and I have just received an e-mail from them - with a typo in the heading! - inviting me to subscribe to the share offer before it closes at the end of October and saying that "The business is still sensitive to the level of borrowing required to achieve the purchase and this can be improved by any further Share sales.".

 

I too received one, and am happy to consider investing if there is some clarity around the numbers. I've written to Mr Cowling tonight requesting the following - which, for the avoidance of doubt is less information than I would have expected for a loan when I was banking. I'll let you know if I get an answer, though if I'm NDA'd obviously I couldn't share it.
___________________

Dear Mr Cowling,

Many thanks for your email reminding me of the opportunity to invest in LBBC. I remain interested in doing so, and would be grateful if you could send me the following information so that I can make an informed investment decision:

(i) Purchase price of OSHI;
(ii) Current financing package (I'm especially interested in the amount of debt LBBC is carrying and the repayment terms, given the economic situation and energy costs)
(iii) The last two years' worth of Management Accounts
(iv) Current business plan and projected cashflow

I am, of course, happy to sign an NDA.

With all good wishes,

 

All reasonable questions, but I have a feeling that they themselves are already subject to NDA s, which extremely limit what they can say.
Awkward for them...

 

Especially when trying to solicit money from people.


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It will be most instructive to know if the response is “we cannot tell you as we signed an NDA”. I would not myself feel that was a very good sign.

 

As an attempt to solicit investment, in any other circumstances, I’d be concerned about fraud if someone said that. I’d also be very concerned about the legitimacy of the prospectus if material factors couldn’t be shared, even if in confidence, with prospective investors.


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